Looking for a family calendar solution
June 5, 2017 6:48 AM Subscribe
I would like to set up a family calendar that works the way outlook works: you can create an event, and then add people to the event. You can see the schedule for each person, and you can see the schedule for the family as a whole. The solution must run on iPhones and Macs.
iCal and the other calendar apps I'm aware of operate on the basis of "calendars", where each person has their own calendar. When you create a new event, you can add it to one person's calendar. An event only lives in one person's calendar. You can't add another person to it.
This does not work very well for families, where an event will often be attended by multiple family members. For example, if I schedule a doctor appointment for my daughter, I'd also like to be able to add whichever parent is taking her to the appointment. That way we know which parent is responsible for doing it, and we that parent's calendar shows them as busy at that time. Business calendars handle this pattern very well, but I'm not aware of a consumer solution that does the same thing.
Is there a good service, app, or maybe just a methodology for accomplishing this?
Other details: we use Macs and iPhones. I have accounts at Fastmail and so I could use CalDev with them if that would be useful. I don't care who makes the calendar as long as it's not going to vanish under me. I'm fine paying for something but don't want to pay business rates. I've often had difficulty using Google services because they work best for people who are 100% inside Googleville, and we're not.
iCal and the other calendar apps I'm aware of operate on the basis of "calendars", where each person has their own calendar. When you create a new event, you can add it to one person's calendar. An event only lives in one person's calendar. You can't add another person to it.
This does not work very well for families, where an event will often be attended by multiple family members. For example, if I schedule a doctor appointment for my daughter, I'd also like to be able to add whichever parent is taking her to the appointment. That way we know which parent is responsible for doing it, and we that parent's calendar shows them as busy at that time. Business calendars handle this pattern very well, but I'm not aware of a consumer solution that does the same thing.
Is there a good service, app, or maybe just a methodology for accomplishing this?
Other details: we use Macs and iPhones. I have accounts at Fastmail and so I could use CalDev with them if that would be useful. I don't care who makes the calendar as long as it's not going to vanish under me. I'm fine paying for something but don't want to pay business rates. I've often had difficulty using Google services because they work best for people who are 100% inside Googleville, and we're not.
I use google calendar for this. It's easy to invite other people to events on your calendar, and you can also set it up so that different people can see or modify a single calendar. You can color code events. So you could have a family calendar and code kid1 blue, kid2 red, parent1 green, parent2 yellow. Or you and spouse could have two different personal calendars and invite each other to your events, color coded as you prefer. Personally, we use separate calendars, because I sync my google calendar for free/busy with appointment scheduling software for business purposes, and I need all of my busy times blocked out.
posted by instamatic at 7:46 AM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by instamatic at 7:46 AM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks for these suggestions. I should describe what I'm already doing, to clarify what I wish worked better.
I currently iCal and have set up calendars for each family member. Each calendar is coded with its own color. My children are young and don't maintain their own calendars. Mrs. WtP prefers a paper calendar.
I could duplicate events the way brentajones describes, but this results in a display that's very cluttered hard to read, especially in the week view. It's also more work entering events and updating them when things change.
I'm not sure how I'd implement Instamatic's suggestion, given that I'm doing all the calendaring myself. I already have so much trouble dealing with Google when I have to do that through work, I can't imagine trying to juggle four separate Google calendar accounts and sending and receiving and accepting invitations every time I wanted make a calendar entry. Maybe there is a way to make this work that I'm not aware of.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:15 AM on June 5, 2017
I currently iCal and have set up calendars for each family member. Each calendar is coded with its own color. My children are young and don't maintain their own calendars. Mrs. WtP prefers a paper calendar.
I could duplicate events the way brentajones describes, but this results in a display that's very cluttered hard to read, especially in the week view. It's also more work entering events and updating them when things change.
I'm not sure how I'd implement Instamatic's suggestion, given that I'm doing all the calendaring myself. I already have so much trouble dealing with Google when I have to do that through work, I can't imagine trying to juggle four separate Google calendar accounts and sending and receiving and accepting invitations every time I wanted make a calendar entry. Maybe there is a way to make this work that I'm not aware of.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:15 AM on June 5, 2017
I came in here to suggest Google Calendar too. I have control over the other family members calendars as well, so I can add events to their calendar directly in the Google web interface.
Some of the other family members do not use Gmail or any other services except Google Calendar, and it still works.
posted by moiraine at 8:22 AM on June 5, 2017
Some of the other family members do not use Gmail or any other services except Google Calendar, and it still works.
posted by moiraine at 8:22 AM on June 5, 2017
Nthing Google calendars. Not sure what about how they work is problematic for the use case you described... it seems like it would/should work just fine.
You mention accessing from work being an issue but I'm not sure what that entails. Do they block Google?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:30 AM on June 5, 2017
You mention accessing from work being an issue but I'm not sure what that entails. Do they block Google?
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 8:30 AM on June 5, 2017
+1 Google Calendar. You can set it up to add events directly to the calendars so there's no inviting and accepting required.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:55 AM on June 5, 2017
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:55 AM on June 5, 2017
Best answer: I use Google calendars and I see the problem, though I haven't solved it. The issue is that to have it in my calendar and my husband's calendar is actually two events. So when I look at a view with everyone's calendar, I'm seeing twice (or maybe four times) as many events as are actually happening. So if you have three things in one day that four people are attending, there are 12 items on the calendar and the view can get really hard to scan visually.
This is how our office does things and it drives me nuts.
posted by gideonfrog at 9:58 AM on June 5, 2017
This is how our office does things and it drives me nuts.
posted by gideonfrog at 9:58 AM on June 5, 2017
Response by poster: I am trying not to thread sit, but I don't understand how to do this with Google Calendar.
I just went into my Google Calendar account. I don't use this, so it's basically empty. I went into settings and renamed the one calendar in there "original calendar". I then created four new calendars inside the account, named "Father", "Mother", "Son", "Daughter". So now I have calendars for everyone in my family plus the original calendar which is still the default.
Then I got out of settings and created an event. The event gets created in the original calendar, which is still the default. Now I want to show that everyone (all four calendars) are attending the event. I go into the event details, but I don't see anything that will let me add "Father", "Mother", etc to the event, or conversely add the event to those calendars. I can change the calendar holding the event, but that's not what I want to do. I can also "add guests". However, adding guests seems to involve typing in e-mail addresses so Google can send e-mail to other people and give them a chance to accept or reject the invitation. That's not what I want to do, either.
I guess I could create Google accounts for everyone in my family, including a gmail address and a Google calendar for each family member, and then when I create an event I could send invitations to those other e-mail addresses, and then I could furiously log in and out of all those other Google accounts to accept the invitations.... But this is so awful that I can't imagine it's what people are suggesting.
So, if that's the wrong way to do it with Google calendar, what's the right way to do it?
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:57 AM on June 5, 2017
I just went into my Google Calendar account. I don't use this, so it's basically empty. I went into settings and renamed the one calendar in there "original calendar". I then created four new calendars inside the account, named "Father", "Mother", "Son", "Daughter". So now I have calendars for everyone in my family plus the original calendar which is still the default.
Then I got out of settings and created an event. The event gets created in the original calendar, which is still the default. Now I want to show that everyone (all four calendars) are attending the event. I go into the event details, but I don't see anything that will let me add "Father", "Mother", etc to the event, or conversely add the event to those calendars. I can change the calendar holding the event, but that's not what I want to do. I can also "add guests". However, adding guests seems to involve typing in e-mail addresses so Google can send e-mail to other people and give them a chance to accept or reject the invitation. That's not what I want to do, either.
I guess I could create Google accounts for everyone in my family, including a gmail address and a Google calendar for each family member, and then when I create an event I could send invitations to those other e-mail addresses, and then I could furiously log in and out of all those other Google accounts to accept the invitations.... But this is so awful that I can't imagine it's what people are suggesting.
So, if that's the wrong way to do it with Google calendar, what's the right way to do it?
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:57 AM on June 5, 2017
You don't have to log in to the other accounts. You can either duplicate the event on the other calendars or you can set the accounts to auto-accept invitations and then invite relevant parties to events.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 12:07 PM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by rabbitrabbit at 12:07 PM on June 5, 2017 [4 favorites]
I see what you're saying, but I think once you get used to Google calendar it will not be a problem. We do exactly what instamatic does. When I go onto my Google calendar I can see my stuff along with my husband and my son's stuff. When I'm going to put something on the calendar I just check theirs first to see if it will conflict with my own plans, just by reading the event.
If I'm going to make an appointment for my son that I want my husband to cover, I ask him first.
Also, we sit down at the beginning of every week and go over the schedule, decide who is taking Jr. where, and that kind of thing.
Finally, in my house, the Google calendar rules. If you have something going on that isn't on the calendar, that's on you to figure out, in terms of needing the car/child care coverage. We very, very rarely don't put things on the calendar.
posted by lyssabee at 3:34 PM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
If I'm going to make an appointment for my son that I want my husband to cover, I ask him first.
Also, we sit down at the beginning of every week and go over the schedule, decide who is taking Jr. where, and that kind of thing.
Finally, in my house, the Google calendar rules. If you have something going on that isn't on the calendar, that's on you to figure out, in terms of needing the car/child care coverage. We very, very rarely don't put things on the calendar.
posted by lyssabee at 3:34 PM on June 5, 2017 [1 favorite]
Just to be clear, when you create an event in Google calendar, there's a drop down box when you edit the event that allows you to make anyone the "owner" of the event. Also there's a copy function in edit event/more functions so you can drop it onto anyone's/everyone's calendar. Takes two seconds.
posted by lyssabee at 3:40 PM on June 5, 2017
posted by lyssabee at 3:40 PM on June 5, 2017
Response by poster: I've apparently done a really bad job of describing what I'm looking for, because everyone is telling me how to do something that I don't want to do. I'm going to mark this question as resolved because I don't think it can be fixed. I may try again in a week. Thanks all for your suggestions, in any case.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 4:01 PM on June 5, 2017
posted by Winnie the Proust at 4:01 PM on June 5, 2017
Why not workshop your question here? I am a heavy gCal user, and have been lurking on this thread to see when to best chime in. I'm happy to try to help work through it, either here or on meMail.
Edit: before this gets flagged - by "workshop" I just mean "try to restate", not a lot of back and forth...
posted by misterbrandt at 5:00 PM on June 5, 2017
Edit: before this gets flagged - by "workshop" I just mean "try to restate", not a lot of back and forth...
posted by misterbrandt at 5:00 PM on June 5, 2017
Yeah, you might as well try and clarify since you've already got this question open. I guess the big question is, are you willing to use Google Calendar if you can set it up so it works, or are you unwilling to consider Google Calendar as a solution?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:10 PM on June 5, 2017
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:10 PM on June 5, 2017
If I may take a stab at this from a gCal perspective, you need to choose a Source of Truth, which sounds like it will be either your gCal, or your wife's paper calendar.
For gCal, create an event in a single calendar and invite the others. Kids' accounts autoaccept, Wife copies from the invitation to paper calendar.
For a paper calendar as the SoT, Wife writes the event down, you create a gCal event, and invite Kids, who autoaccept. Depending on Wife's engagement with these techno-calendars, she can configure her account for autoaccept or accept manually on her phone or computer.
posted by rhizome at 7:03 PM on June 5, 2017
For gCal, create an event in a single calendar and invite the others. Kids' accounts autoaccept, Wife copies from the invitation to paper calendar.
For a paper calendar as the SoT, Wife writes the event down, you create a gCal event, and invite Kids, who autoaccept. Depending on Wife's engagement with these techno-calendars, she can configure her account for autoaccept or accept manually on her phone or computer.
posted by rhizome at 7:03 PM on June 5, 2017
Response by poster: Thanks for the encouragement. I'll try again.
I am managing a calendar that includes events for Mother, Father, Son, Daughter. Some events are attended by only one person. Some events are attended by multiple people. I'm the only one who ever touches and sees this calendar. I want to be able to see it on my iPhone and on my Macintosh. In addition, I want to be able to print it out for other family members.
I would like to be able to print a week view and I'd like to be able to print a month view.
I would like to be able to view the calendar showing all the events. I would like to be able to view the calendar showing only Mother events, only Father events, only Son events, or only Daughter events. I would like to be able to print each of this views in a weekly or monthly layout.
Each event has a primary person; you can think of it as the owner of the event. The events would be color-coded by that primary person: So Mother Events might be Red, Father Events Purple, Daughter Events Blue, Son Events Yellow. That way when I look at the calendar view that has everyone's events it, I can quickly see that some things belong to one person and other things belong to another.
In addition, there would ideally be some way to see which other people are attending an event, in addition to the owner.
In iCal on the Macintosh (and I believe in Google Calendar), it is easy to most of this. I can create calendars for Mother, Father, Son, Daughter. I can give each one its own color. I can toggle calendars on and off so I'm only viewing some of them but not others. But iCal doesn't have any way to say "this event belongs on *both* of these calendars". I don't think Google Calendar has a way to do that either.
It sounds like I might be able to do some or most of what I want with these steps:
posted by Winnie the Proust at 2:01 PM on June 6, 2017
I am managing a calendar that includes events for Mother, Father, Son, Daughter. Some events are attended by only one person. Some events are attended by multiple people. I'm the only one who ever touches and sees this calendar. I want to be able to see it on my iPhone and on my Macintosh. In addition, I want to be able to print it out for other family members.
I would like to be able to print a week view and I'd like to be able to print a month view.
I would like to be able to view the calendar showing all the events. I would like to be able to view the calendar showing only Mother events, only Father events, only Son events, or only Daughter events. I would like to be able to print each of this views in a weekly or monthly layout.
Each event has a primary person; you can think of it as the owner of the event. The events would be color-coded by that primary person: So Mother Events might be Red, Father Events Purple, Daughter Events Blue, Son Events Yellow. That way when I look at the calendar view that has everyone's events it, I can quickly see that some things belong to one person and other things belong to another.
In addition, there would ideally be some way to see which other people are attending an event, in addition to the owner.
In iCal on the Macintosh (and I believe in Google Calendar), it is easy to most of this. I can create calendars for Mother, Father, Son, Daughter. I can give each one its own color. I can toggle calendars on and off so I'm only viewing some of them but not others. But iCal doesn't have any way to say "this event belongs on *both* of these calendars". I don't think Google Calendar has a way to do that either.
It sounds like I might be able to do some or most of what I want with these steps:
- create separate Google calendar accounts for Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter
- publish the accounts for Mother, Son, Daughter; set these accounts to auto-accept invitations
- subscribe to these accounts from the Father account
- create events in the Father account and invite the appropriate people to attend them
But having written the above, it doesn't quite work Father will be the owner of all the events. So maybe I need to add a fifth account. Each accounts gets to have its own gmail address and its own Google Calendar account. I'm not sure I can get the colors to work, and I don't know whether the weekly displays will show who is attending each event, but maybe.
Is that what people are suggesting?
If so, I would still hold out hope that there is some other solution that is designed specifically for families. This arrangement feels like a painful kluge made worse by the fact that I have a visceral negative reaction to Google's UI design. If there was a natural way to do what I wanted with Google Calendar I might be able to deal with it. But the thing I described doesn't feel "natural".
Thank you all for your patience. Please let me know if there's some other way to do this with Google Calendar that I'm stubbornly failing to comprehend.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 2:01 PM on June 6, 2017
create events in the Father account and invite the appropriate people to attend them But having written the above, it doesn't quite work Father will be the owner of all the events.
As has been pointed out repeatedly above, in multiple posts, you can create these calendar events on Google Calendar. Father will be the default option; however, you can click on a drop-down menu that will change the event owner to Son or Daughter or Mother or whatever.
Each accounts gets to have its own gmail address and its own Google Calendar account.
Again, as pointed out, no Google Calendar account needs to have its own gmail address. It needs to have an email address, yes, but not specifically google.
Short of paying someone to take you step by step on a personal Skype video conference, you will have to play around with Google interface a little, however horrifying the UI seems to you, to get what you want. As people have pointed out above in various dribs and drabs, you can achieve pretty much 95% of what you want on Google Calendar.
posted by moiraine at 2:50 PM on June 6, 2017
As has been pointed out repeatedly above, in multiple posts, you can create these calendar events on Google Calendar. Father will be the default option; however, you can click on a drop-down menu that will change the event owner to Son or Daughter or Mother or whatever.
Each accounts gets to have its own gmail address and its own Google Calendar account.
Again, as pointed out, no Google Calendar account needs to have its own gmail address. It needs to have an email address, yes, but not specifically google.
Short of paying someone to take you step by step on a personal Skype video conference, you will have to play around with Google interface a little, however horrifying the UI seems to you, to get what you want. As people have pointed out above in various dribs and drabs, you can achieve pretty much 95% of what you want on Google Calendar.
posted by moiraine at 2:50 PM on June 6, 2017
Best answer: I don't want to talk you into gCal if you hate it, but here's how my family uses it. The three oldest of us have google calendars/emails. I absolutely LIVE out of my google calendar, because I will forget my head if I don't have a calendar pop up telling me "attach head/ Monday 8am." I subscribe to all relevant family calendars (elementary school, middle school, PTA, extracurricular courses), so I magically know that Pajama Day is Friday without having to write it down myself. I put all kid-related appointments on my calendar, and I send invitations to spouse and oldest kid. (Kid dentist next Monday!) I send my meetings/appointments to oldest kid if they impact her time/my availability ("PT late on Wednesday"). My husband sends his work travel or doctor appointments to me from HIS calendar. Kids don't create calendar events yet. We have a (theoretical) Sunday evening family meeting to go over the next week's calendar and coordinate kid and pet coverage. I add calendars to my own account as needed (new calendar for youngest kid that functions as a convenient pain diary as per her last pediatrician appointment-- headache last Monday 8-10am).
posted by instamatic at 8:31 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by instamatic at 8:31 PM on June 7, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks to all for your time trying to explain this to me. It's good to know there may be a path there if I want to keep exploring it.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:32 PM on June 8, 2017
posted by Winnie the Proust at 1:32 PM on June 8, 2017
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posted by brentajones at 7:23 AM on June 5, 2017